


such dreams as we are made on

by mamaparrilla (burdenedwithgloriousmadness)



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Dreamfic, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, Heartbreak, Loss, Vignette, dream - Freeform, false death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-13
Updated: 2015-09-13
Packaged: 2018-04-20 16:25:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 754
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4794302
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/burdenedwithgloriousmadness/pseuds/mamaparrilla
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Based on a dream I had last night. That's all I'll say...</p>
            </blockquote>





	such dreams as we are made on

When I thought Regina was dead...I was dead.  
Not in the traditional sense, of course.  
My heart was still pumping blood through my veins, my lungs were still taking in air, my brain was still firing away.  
It was a death of the soul.  
I couldn’t feel properly.  
My skin tingled with horror.  
My flesh felt like it was peeling away from my bones in visceral revulsion at the thought that my love was gone.  
I wouldn’t have been surprised if my pores had opened up in silent screams and every hair on my body had simultaneously fallen off.  
Physically, my muscles still worked, but I couldn’t quite remember how to use them.  
I was shaking.  
Shaking all over, spilling my coffee, dropping my books.  
I couldn’t concentrate.  
Anything I tried to think about dissolved.  
And I was left with nothing but my grief.  
I went through all the stages like a fucking textbook.  
Denial: “she can’t be dead, she just can’t, she’s out there somewhere, she’ll be back for me —”  
Anger: “it’s your fault, you could have saved her, you caused this, all of you did this —”  
Bargaining: “my only religion is her, but if there’s any sort of deity out there who can hear me, I’m begging you, bring her back and I will do WHATEVER YOU WANT — anything —”  
Depression: “I am dead, I have no soul, I can never go on, my life is meaningless from this point forward —”  
Acceptance: “I accept and acknowledge my own death.  
There will never be meaning again and I will go on without it.  
I no longer exist except in other people’s minds.  
This is neither an end nor a beginning.  
I am trapped in an eternal middle.  
Without her, I am nothing.”  
NOTHING.  
No thing.  
Fuck you.  
Fuck me.  
Fuck the world.  
Fuck this life.  
Fuck.

Fortunately, souls are easier to resurrect than bodies.  
I was sitting alone at a picnic table, getting a kind of grim satisfaction from the splinters digging into my butt.  
I guess everyone knew to leave me alone, because if they fucking TOUCHED me or TALKED to me, they knew I would fucking KILL them.  
I had no soul.  
I had no soul.  
Everything that meant anything had died.

There was a noise.  
The creak of a door.  
I looked up out of habit.  
(I no longer possessed curiosity.)  
The door was open.  
I thought I was hallucinating when I saw who was coming out.  
It was a dumb trick.  
My brain was doing this to me.  
Cruel shit.  
I blinked, I shook my head, everything.  
It was still her.  
I couldn’t move.  
Her feet in her shoes.  
Her legs.  
Her knees.  
Her hips.  
Her waist.  
Her breasts.  
Her shoulders.  
Her arms.  
Her hands.  
Her fingers.  
Her neck.  
Her jaw.  
Her hair.  
Her lips.  
Her nose.  
Her eyes.  
Fuck.  
Fuck everything.

All at once I remembered what it was like to have a soul.  
Everything I had been incapable of feeling was back.  
I almost fell over when I stood up too fast and the front of my pelvis whacked against the picnic table.  
I was dizzy.  
A cloud.  
Floating?  
Condensing.  
When she died I’d evaporated.  
Become water vapor, invisible and dispersed.  
Lacking form.  
Now I was condensing.  
Becoming liquid again.  
Coalescing.  
I could feel it in my scalp.

I don’t remember walking toward her, but suddenly I was right in front of her.  
She was still in high heels so she was a few inches taller than me.  
My arms were around her and my head was on her shoulder.  
The right shoulder.  
That’s important.  
I was crying, it was probably pretty ugly.  
My hands couldn’t stop moving up and down her back.  
I guess I was trying to reassure myself that she was real.  
Her hair tickled my neck.  
She was stroking my back, comforting me.  
She smelled like grass and smoke.  
Clear nights and petrichor.  
Chocolate and peppermint.

I leaned back to comb my fingers through her hair and drink in her face with my eyes.  
She was crying and smiling at the same time.  
(I was just crying, hadn’t gotten to the smiling bit yet.)  
I touched her lips, her cheeks, her nose, her forehead, her eyebrows, eyelids, chin, throat —  
I ran my fingers through her hair and tilted her head forward.  
I went on tiptoe to kiss her on the forehead.  
“I thought I’d lost you,” I whispered, and she smiled and touched my face.  
“I’m not that easy to get rid of.”


End file.
